A Bit Of Sponge

Look, again, at the sponge-fragment which lies before us. You perceive half a dozen large holes or so, each opening on a little eminence, as it were. These apertures, bear in mind, we call oscula. They are the exits of the sponge-domain. But a close inspection of a sponge shows that it is riddled with finer and smaller apertures. These latter are the pores, and they form the entrances to the sponge-domain.

On the banks of the canal you may see growing plentifully in summer time a green sponge, which is the common fresh-water species. Now, if you drop a living specimen of this species into a bowl of water, and put some powdered indigo into the water, you may note how the currents are perpetually being swept in by the pores and out by the oscula. In every living sponge this perpetual and unceasing circulation of water proceeds. This is the sole evidence the unassisted sight receives of the vitality of the sponge-colony, [pg 209] and the importance of this circulation in aiding life in these depths, to be fairly carried out cannot readily be over-estimated.

WHERE SPONGES GROW.

Let us now see how this circulation is maintained. Microscopically regarded, we see here and there, in the sides of the sponge-passages, little chambers and recesses which remind one of the passing-places in a narrow canal. Lining these chambers, we see living sponge-units of a type different from the shapeless specks we noted to occur in the meshes of the sponge substance itself. The units of the recesses each consist of a living particle, whose free extremity is raised into a kind of collar, from which projects a lash-like filament known as a flagellum.

This lash is in constant movement. It waves to and fro in the water, and the collection of lashes we see in any one chamber acts as a veritable brush, which by its movement not only sweeps water in by the pores, but sends it onwards through the sponge, and in due time sends it out by the bigger holes, or oscula. This constant circulation in the sponge discharges more than one important function. For, as already noted, it serves the purpose of nutrition, in that the particles on which sponge-life is supported are swept into the colony.

Again, the fresh currents of water carry with them the oxygen gas which is a necessity of sponge existence, as of human life; while, thirdly, waste matters, inevitably alike in sponge and in man as the result of living, are swept out of the colony, and discharged into the sea beyond. Our bit of sponge has thus grown from a mere dry fragment into a living reality. It is a [pg 210] community in which already, low as it is, the work of life has come to be discharged by distinct and fairly specialized beings.

The era of new sponge-life is inaugurated by means of egg-development, although there exists another fashion (that of gemmules or buds) whereby out of the parental substance young sponges are produced. A sponge-egg develops, as do all eggs, in a definite cycle. It undergoes division (Fig. 1); its one cell becomes many; and its many cells arrange themselves first of all into a cup-like form (5, 6 and 7), which may remain in this shape if the sponge is a simple one, or become developed into the more complex shape of the sponges we know.

In every museum you may see specimens of a beautiful vase-like structure seemingly made of spun-glass. This is a flinty sponge, the "Venus flower-basket," whose presence in the sponge family redeems it from the charge that it contains no things of beauty whatever. So, too, the rocks are full of fossil-sponges, many of quaint form. Our piece of sponge, as we may understand, has yet other bits of history attached to it.... Meanwhile, think over the sponge and its ways, and learn from it that out of the dry things of life, science weaves many a fairy tale.

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